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Kenya deeply divided

After the inauguration of Uhuru Kenyatta, many Kenyans are hoping for peace. But it seems unlikely that the government and opposition will be able to start any kind of meaningful dialogue.

In Kenya, the newly elected President Uhuru Kenyattachose exactly the right words for the main task in his second term of office: He wants to unite the nation. The country is deeply divided and the political divisions seem, at this point, to be almost insurmountable. Following Kenyatta's swearing in on Tuesday in Nairobi, reality is now taking hold. On Wednesday — one day after the inauguration ceremony in the presence of many African leaders — the streets in the capital remained quiet. Kenyans are disillusioned after the election debacle. Dozens of people were killed in violent clashes over the past few months after the annulment of the first presidential election in August. Kenya now faces the challenge of finding a united and peaceful way forward.

Lack of trust

According to political analysts, many Kenyans do not have confidence in the government, which has been elected for a further five years. Only 39 percent of the electorate took part in the second election on 26 October after the first presidential election failed due to alleged electoral fraud.

"The entire electoral process has further divided the nation," Ulf Terlinden, director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Nairobi told DW. The opposition boycotted the second election out of protest, but has not been able to gain anything from this, he said. They are now only able to assert their importance by cementing division, or even escalating the conflict, he added.

Police fired teargas at crowds who tried to force their way into the stadium for the inauguration of Uhuru

This appears to be exactly the path that opposition leader RailaOdinga is taking. On the day of Kenyatta's swearing in, Odinga announced that he would swear himself in as president on 12 December.

"Swearing in a second president is certainly an act of provocation to which the government will respond," said Terlinden. Odinga wants to set up a kind of national convention that will elect him as president. By so doing, he would risk being accused of treason.

No reconciliation in sight

The country is facing a dilemma. The second election on 26 October was legal but not credible. "An election without an opposition puts its legitimacy in question," Terlinden said. Negotiations alone cannot resolve the historical conflict in the country. For Terlinden, the question is whether a dialogue is possible that could renew the basic social consensus and do away with old injustices, for example the land question. Kenyatta and the Kikuyus are accused of appropriating land unlawfully. The recommendations of a commission of enquiry have not been implemented. "Only by resolving the land issue can Kenya move forward, but the prospect of this happening is not very good," Terlinden said.

Kenyan political commentator Martin Oloo sees dialogue as the only, albeit difficult, way to a conciliatory future. With Raila Odinga refusing to recognize the government, there is widespread dissatisfaction with the current situation. But the opposition is moving on slippery ground with their plan for creating a national assembly.

Many supporters of Raila Odinga boycotted Uhuru's swearing ceremony

"If the opposition continues to behave like this and the government does not try to reduce the political divide in the country, the division will deepen and the tensions around the different ethnicities will increase," said Oloo.

According to Oloo, the political division is about much deeper issues that are based on old ethnic conflicts rooted in issues of exclusion. Since independence in 1963, most of Kenya's presidents have come from the country's largest ethnic group, the Kikuyu — for example, Jomo Kenyatta, and now his son Uhuru. According to experts, members of other groups, such as the Luo, to which Odinga belongs, feel marginalized.

Shifting political struggle

"It takes a lot of humility from the winners and courage from the losers to come together with the goal of healing the nation," Oloo told DW. "We hope that those who work with the leaders will say: ‘The land is bigger than you. Let us reconcile and postpone the struggles until later.'" He pointed out that serious consideration must be given to renewing the electoral system. Everyone has lost confidence in the electoral commission, which has been proven incompetent, he said.

Tanzania's Magufuli, an old friend of Odinga was unsurprisingly absent at Uhuru's inauguration

The division between the supporters of Kenyatta and Odinga is now having flow-on effects to neighboring countries. While Kenyatta's inauguration was attended by all other heads of government of neighboring states, Tanzania's President John Magufuli was absent. Magafuli is an old friend of Raila Odinga. A trade row has affected ties between Tanzania and Kenya and exports in both directions have fallen. During his election campaign Odinga promised to negotiate an opening of the border with his friend. The controversial re-election of Kenyatta could add to the burden on ties between the two countries. If Odinga does indeed proclaim a parallel government, then he would have, at least behind the scenes, a possible ally in the person of Magufuli.

How events unfolded in the Kenyan election

A tight race

Elections on August 8, 2017 were expected to be a neck- and-neck affair between incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta and his rival Raila Odinga.

How events unfolded in the Kenyan election

Unrest ahead

A week ahead of the hotly contested vote, Christopher Musando, IT department chief of Kenya's Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), was found dead. He was one of the few people with key information about the election management system. IEBC servers were supposedly breached in the 2013 polls.

How events unfolded in the Kenyan election

Marred by violence

The violence many Kenyans had feared and anticipated erupted just a few hours after the election results, handing victory to the incumbent, started to trickle in. Dozens of people were killed, mostly in the opposition strongholds. Refusing to accept the outcome of the poll, Raila Odinga turned to the Supreme Court.

How events unfolded in the Kenyan election

Anticipating results

The election was free and fair, international observers said, despite opposition allegations of rigging and hacked servers. Former US Secretary of State John Kerry, who headed a group of election observers from the Carter Center, also endorsed the vote.

How events unfolded in the Kenyan election

Irregular, illegal

To no avail, however as on September 1, Kenya’s Supreme Court declared the vote neither "transparent nor verifiable" and nullified the August 8 presidential elections, in which the IEBC had declared President Uhuru Kenyatta the winner with more than 54 percent of vote. The court called for new elections within 60 days.

How events unfolded in the Kenyan election

Kenyatta - livid, stung

A disappointed Uhuru Kenyatta, who had already received hundreds of congratulatory messages, called the Supreme Court judges 'crooks.' The Chief Justice emerged an African hero for taking a firm decision to annul the results that were in favor of the incumbent president.

How events unfolded in the Kenyan election

In the interest of a 'credible' vote

Kenyatta's rival Raila Odinga pulled out of the re-run of the presidential election scheduled for late October. Odinga said he wanted to allow for the electoral commission to make fundamental reforms that would deliver a "credible election."

How events unfolded in the Kenyan election

Business boycott

The opposition boycott targeted giants in the telecommunications industry and companies that deal in dairy products, cooking fats and oils. Raila Odinga took the lead, publicly migrating from the Safaricom phone network, whose client he had been for the last ten years, to a new provider called airtel.

How events unfolded in the Kenyan election

Challenge dismissed

In November, Kenya’s Supreme Court upheld President Kenyatta's victory in the controversial October re-run, which he had won with 98 percent of the vote on a turnout of 39 percent. The court dismissed two petitions that argued the second poll had not been conducted according to law.

How events unfolded in the Kenyan election

Two titans

Kenya, where politics have been characterized by ethnic tensions since independence in 1963, is deeply split along an ethnic divide that has triggered a debate on splitting the country into two. It’s now up to the two political heavyweights, Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga, (flanked above by the Archbishop of Canterbury) to bring the country back to normalcy.